Mike is a retired stock broker, and now published author of Gold Rush!. In addition, he is a freelance writer specializing in real estate, personal finance and home decor now writing from San Miguel, Mexico.

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Hey Mihai, this is Jay Allen. Not sure if you’ll see this but I noticed that you are specifying the full domain in your StaticWebPath (from source: “StaticURI = ‘http://www.movabletype4.org/static/’;”). This causes a problem for anyone accessing the demo from movabletype4.org (without the www.) as the entry body textbox on the edit entry screen is inaccessible (XSS protection).

Don Melson of
Searchlight Crusade informs us that California has passed Assembly Bill 976 which prohibits a landlord from asking if the prospective renter is an illegal alien.

No landlord or any agent of the landlord shall do any of the following: (1) Make any inquiry regarding or based on the immigration or citizenship status of a tenant, prospective tenant, occupant, or prospective occupant of residential rental property.

How can a landlord protect himself from an illegal immigrant who loses his job and is unable to pay the rent because he was caught being an illegal immigrant?

Sun Capital is going backwards! In 2000 Nationwide Mattress and Furniture Warehouse known as Nationwide Warehouse & Storage had 160 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Sun Capital acquired the majority stake in a trimmed down 63-store Nationwide in 2002 in a deal valued at $10.7 million. Six years later, Great American Groupâ€™s furniture division will take over operations in about a week and liquidate the Nationwide business.

Wheeling, Ill.-based Wickes Furniture, another early Sun Capital buy, also has been struggling and recently sent asks its suppliers to sign a â€œvendor modification agreement,â€ that would defer payments of past-due debt for 18 months. The letter said a new $10 million equity investment, hinged on the concessions.

The latest poll ahows Mitt Romney now with a slight lead over Sen. John McCain. The state that Giulani expected to roll him into the White House, has found him wanting.

Third, McCain seems to have pissed off conservative Republicans by lying about Romney’s record. It is too early, but the nominees could be Obama, the first black nominee, and Romney, the first Mormon nominee. The result will be historic!

The New York Times has this story titled
Saving Sears Doesnâ€™t Look Easy Anymore. I wonder if we are witnessing the end of Sears. In April of 2007, Sears (SHLD) traded over $195 a share. Friday it closed at $99! An evaporation of $14 billion in market value.

Since combining the two retailers, Mr. (Edward S.) Lampert, 45, has raised prices even as he has cut capital spending and marketing budgets. The dearth of investment shows up in stores, many of which look shabby next to those of rivals like Target and J. C. Penney. Mr. Lampertâ€™s major use of cash has been to buy back Sears Holdingsâ€™ shares.

And in 2008 he faces three problems that were only partly evident last year: belt-tightening by consumers, a falling housing market and a possible recession. â€œSears is woefully unprepared to handle this kind of consumer spending slowdown,â€ said Bill Dreher, an analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities. â€œThe underinvestment in stores has hurt sales, hurt customer good will and will hurt their long-term competitiveness.â€

The market cap of Sears is currently at $14 Billion on sales of over $52 Billion. The $14 Billion is basically the value of the real estate.

Craig Schmidt, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, and Gregory Melich, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, value Sears real estate at around $16 billion. The companyâ€™s market capitalization is $14 billion, as of Fridayâ€™s close. One investor who has bet against Sears said he believes the real estate may be worth just $10 billion.

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis believes that there is a
Commercial Real Estate Crash Underway. The $10 Billion is about $72 per share. The market is not giving much value to the long history of Sears.

It appears that we are going to be getting a rebate as part of an economic stimulus package.
From Breitbart.com

Individuals who pay income taxes would get up to $600, working couples $1,200 and those with children an additional $300 per child under the agreement. Workers who make at least $3,000 but don’t pay taxes would get $300 rebates.

The checks will start going out “…in May, and most people could have them by July.”

I have two questions. Is it a rebate if you are one of those who doesn’t pay taxes? Should we save the money, pay down debt or spend it? The answer is an individual one, but probably depends on your outlook for the economy.

As for me, Christmas was just a month ago, I got a flat-screen TV, and I have opened all my presents for my birthday on the 15th. My wants have been slaked. I might save mine.

As you know Fred Thompson dropped out of the race for Republican Nominee for President. This blog has featured Thompson prominently on our sidebar. Yesterday I received an email from Stephen B. Smith, Director of Online Communications, Romney for President, Inc..

Mike

Since youâ€™ve endorsed Senator Thompson at Mover Mike, I wanted to reach out after your candidateâ€™s decision today.

With Senator Thompsonâ€™s departure, I believe that Governor Romney is the only candidate capable of maintaining the unity of the conservative coalition. And I believe that only Governor Romney can stop Senator McCain in Florida and beyond.

Please let me know if I can be of assistance as our party moves forward.

I haven’t heard from John McCain. I guess he is not interested in voters like me. He must think he can win without the support of conservatives. It does leave us with a dilemma: who is worthy of our votes? We will consider Mitt Romney, I’m sure.

A phrase credited to Jim Fleckenstein, “Jingle Mail” is “where homeowners have mailed in the keys because they can’t make the payments and no longer have any equity in their homes.” Based on Mish’s latest analysis of the FED moves, “Jingle Mail” may be the new phenominum.

The FED has reduced rates by 1 3/4s and mortgages follow the 10-year Treasury, which has fallen from 4.7% to 3.5%. This time though 15-year mortgages have fallen by just 62 basis points from last year and 30 year mortgages a mere 34 basis points lower than a year ago. That means the Fed’s moves haven’t helped me. If the 30-year goes low enough, I can refinance, pull out equity and continue spending. Mish writes,

Thus, the only people really benefiting from this drop so far are those currently in interest only mortgages, pay option ARMs, or other ARMs specifically tied to short term LIBOR. For those in Pay Option ARMs, this benefit may do nothing but postpone the day of reckoning. This is especially true for Option ARM holders who are only able to afford the minimum payments and are going deeper in debt every passing month due to negative amortization.

Calculated Risk carries a cute little video that explains the problem many are facing:

If you agree that the government needs to do something to keep the economy from going into a recession, we need more than a $800 per person handout. Some have argued that President Bush’s proposed $140 Billion bailout is too small. I believe Hillary Clinton saw his $140 Billion and raised to $240 Billion. I like Rush Limbaugh’s idea. American consumers owe $915 billion in credit card debt. Why not have the government pay it off for us. It would be like hitting a reset button, getting back to zero, so to speak. No pain and soon Americans would be spending again.

I never read Upton Sinclair’s “Oil”. I have read “The Jungle” and many muckrakers’ efforts. I remember thinking how truly horrible it was to work in the meat packing industry “The Jungle” depicts so well. Apparently, Sinclair wrote about the evils of capitalism, him being a socialist, but instead of turning America against industry and the men who ran it, America instead turned to the government to regulate industry with the Pure Food and Drug Act.

“There Will Be Blood” is loosely based on “Oil”. We meet Daniel Plainview, a geologist, first looking for silver, then turning to oil. The opening of the movie does a great job of showing how lonely and risky prospecting is. Then when Plainview finds oil, we see how easily life can end with accidents, how grimy the life was and how high the risks.

Plainview has a son, H.W., but when we are introduced to his son, it wasn’t clear to me that the boy was his. He could have belonged to a worker we saw with the boy and was adopted by Plainview when the worker was killed. But Plainview used the boy as a prop to show he was a “family” man.

Harry Chotiner writes

He (Plainview) seems to feel guilty when being a rotten father, but is uncomfortable with the consequences of affectionate feelings. …We don’t understand Plainview’s own childhood; only that he had one and it meant something to him. We never glimpse what drives him, only that he is driven. Early in the film, he seems the rapacious capitalist. Then we begin to see him as more than amorally greedy, but malicious and cruel.

I think it was easy to depict this capitalist without any moral compass, just greed, willing to do anything to achieve. Even the oil he finds on the Sunday property comes from a Paul Sunday tip not his own hard geologic work.

And what are we to think of the evangelical minister, Eli Sunday, who renounced his God for mammon and a church of his own.

No One in the movie is driven by any moral compass. We have here what is so prevalent in today’s politics, practiced by Hillary Clinton, especially. The end justifies the means!

Sadly, the movie reviews of “There Will Be Blood” mainly concentrate on the process and techniques, rather than the philosophy. And what are we to make of a Hollywood that continually finds anti-American subjects and socialists for movie subject matter.

trading

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